asakiyume: (Em reading)
asakiyume ([personal profile] asakiyume) wrote2025-10-01 01:47 pm

Wednesday reading

Thanks to [personal profile] osprey_archer's Newbery project, I got out The Flying Winged Girl of Knossos (thanks for catching that [personal profile] light_of_summer!) originally published in 1933 and reissued in 2017 by Betsy Bird, who's served on the Newbery Committee, reviewed books for Kirkus, blogs about children's literature, and has in fact written her own middle grade novel (Long Road to the Circus --I haven't read it).

It's easy to see why Betsy Bird and [personal profile] osprey_archer loved this story: it's great fun and excellently told. I loved it too. The author (Allena Best, writing under the pseudonym Erick Berry) was entranced with ancient Minoan culture, and that love shines through on every page. And in Inas, the daughter of Daidalos (she's genderswapped Icarus for Inas), she's got a great heroine. Who dives skillfully for sponges? Inas does! Who is the best bull vaulter? Inas is! Whose hang glider experiment leads to realization that flying into the wind works better than flying with it? Again, Inas!

The authorial voice is definitely not contemporary, but it's lively and fresh. Every now and then there's something about people's races or features that's winceworthy, but mainly the 1930s-ness of it wasn't intrusive in a negative way.

Tangentially, I loved this description of archaeologists, from the author's introduction: "Then in our own time came the archaeologists, those magicians who build authentic history out of lowly potsherds." Magician archaeologists.

I also read a hilarious short story about the foiling of a racist: "Supply and Demand," by [personal profile] f0rrest. Why yes, his user name is my IRL last name, but we are not related in any way. We stumbled upon each other quite by chance.

In "Supply and Demand" a pushy racist is hoisted by his own petard, his petard in this case being his successful participation in capitalism: he ends up supporting and promoting what he despises. I loved the hapless narrator (a young employee at a big-box home goods store) and the digs at retail training scripts. I will also offer a content warning, though, because the racist dude says alllllll the negative things you can think to say about "those people," as he calls them. There are no slurs, and he never specifies exactly who comprises "those people," but you may not feel like imbibing his nonsense, even if it's to see him taken down. His vituperations are pretty hilarious though, e.g, his rant about the historical Santa Claus (and later, his praise of Santa Claus as a hard worker up there at the North Pole).

Anyway, if you want to see a racist taken down in an unusual way, give it a try. It's about 7,000 words.
james_davis_nicoll: (Default)
james_davis_nicoll ([personal profile] james_davis_nicoll) wrote2025-10-01 02:01 pm
Entry tags:

Bundle of Holding: The Far Roofs



The complete tabletop RPG about the heroic rats of Fortitude

Bundle of Holding: The Far Roofs
james_davis_nicoll: (Default)
james_davis_nicoll ([personal profile] james_davis_nicoll) wrote2025-10-01 10:59 am
Entry tags:

October 2025 Patreon Boost



You too can support James Nicoll Reviews.

October 2025 Patreon Boost
rachelmanija: (Books: old)
rachelmanija ([personal profile] rachelmanija) wrote2025-10-01 11:14 pm

Out of Air, by Rachel Reiss



Just in terms of the premise, this is The Secret History meets Shadow Divers: a poor girl scuba diver falls in with a group of rich kid scuba divers, and they end up bound together by a shared deadly secret. There's other works it also reminded of, again just in terms of the premise, which are more spoilery: Read more... )

In the present timeline, Phoebe aka "Phibs," a poor aspiring underwater photographer, discovers a hidden underwater cave while on a diving trip with her four rich best friends, Gabriel (hot boy she likes), Will (Gabriel's fraternal twin, a joker), Lani (lost three fingers in past timeline, now afraid to dive), and Isabel (Lani's girlfriend). That is all the characterization Phibs's friends get, though Phibs herself gets a little bit more, or at least more backstory: she's the sole caretaker of her grandmother with dementia, and the women in her family have a possibly uncanny knack for finding things.

In the past timeline, Phibs finds five gold coins via the family knack, and something happens that led to Lani losing fingers and someone dying. In the present, Phibs finds a beautiful underwater cave with an air pocket. She and Gabriel rest and kiss in the air pocket... and then learn that there's a legend saying bad things happen to people who breathe the air in the cave. It seems to be true, as deeply creepy things begin happening to their bodies...

The plot and premise are great, and the diving and body horror/transformation scenes are really well-done. Reiss is a professional scuba diver, and you can tell. But the pacing feels a bit abrupt and choppy, which is not helped by the dual timelines cutting between the past and present, so that events that actually are set up still sometimes feel like they come out of the blue. I had a hard time figuring out the geography of anywhere that wasn't underwater, which is not a common complaint I have about books - for instance, I wasn't sure for most of the book whether the island base in the present storyline was a tiny island with only one house on it, or a large one with a town. And of course there's the mostly-nonexistent characterization, which is really the biggest problem with the book. If this had actual characters rather than "hot boy" and "Lani's girlfriend," it would have been so good.

I didn't mind that nothing is explained about what's actually up with the cave and Phibs's family knack, but in case you would mind: nothing is explained. I did enjoy reading the book but more attention to character and taking things slower could have made it excellent rather than just an enjoyable read with some standout elements.
james_davis_nicoll: (Default)
james_davis_nicoll ([personal profile] james_davis_nicoll) wrote2025-10-01 09:55 am

Blank Canvas: My So-Called Artist's Journey„ volume 1 by Akiko Higashimura



Akiko's plan to become Japan's foremost manga artist is manifestly reasonable, so why will reality not cooperate?

Blank Canvas: My So-Called Artist's Journey„ volume 1 by Akiko Higashimura
rachelmanija: (Books: old)
rachelmanija ([personal profile] rachelmanija) wrote2025-10-01 06:44 am

The Bewitching & Mexican Gothic, by Silvia Moreno-Garcia



Three timelines intertwine, connected by witches and women. A grad student in Massachusetts in the 1990s, whose grandmother had a run-in with a witch in the early 1900s in Mexico, researches the mysterious disappearance of a promising woman horror writer in the 1930s.

It's a very nicely constructed, gripping, enjoyable novel of good and evil magic, and women's persistence in the face of what seem to be impossible odds.

Content notes: Cat death.




What it says on the tin: a very gothic-y gothic, set in Mexico. Noemi is a bit of a shallow, selfish debutante in 1950s Mexico. But when she realizes that her cousin who married a wealthy older man may be in trouble in their lavish home in rural Mexico, Noemi sets out to rescue her. She promptly encounters every gothic trope ever, plus a really fun twist on the haunted house/ghost story.

It turns out that being a mean girl debutante used to getting her own way is exactly what's needed to survive this story. I had no end of fun with Noemi bluntly calling out the rule about no talking at dinner, demanding to know exactly what medical treatment her cousin was getting, and generally running roughshod over the creepy atmosphere. A very enjoyable book that I read in a single sitting.
james_davis_nicoll: (Default)
james_davis_nicoll ([personal profile] james_davis_nicoll) wrote2025-09-30 12:22 pm
Entry tags:

September 2025 in Review



21 works reviewed. 11 by women (52%), 9 by men (43%), 1 by non-binary authors (5%), 0 by authors whose gender is unknown (0%), and 8 by POC (38%).

The chart is breaking formatting. Need to fix or remove it. I do like charts, though.

September 2025 in Review
james_davis_nicoll: (Default)
james_davis_nicoll ([personal profile] james_davis_nicoll) wrote2025-09-29 02:01 pm
Entry tags:

Bundle of Holding: 5E Treasures



A magical hoard for Fifth Edition roleplaying

Bundle of Holding: 5E Treasures
james_davis_nicoll: (Default)
james_davis_nicoll ([personal profile] james_davis_nicoll) wrote2025-09-29 12:15 pm
Entry tags:

Clarke Award Finalists 2016

2016: The Chilcot Inquiry illustrates the meticulous process by which the UK went to war in Iraq, Lord Lucan is declared dead, and the UK’s narrow vote to leave the EU is at worst the second stupidest collective decision made by a Western democracy in 2016.

Pretend I caught that the poll autofilled the wrong question and that it reads "which 2016 Clarke Award finalists did you read?"

Poll #33672 Clarke Award Finalists 2016
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 50


Which of these look interesting?

View Answers

Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky
22 (44.0%)

Arcadia by Iain Pears
2 (4.0%)

Europe at Midnight by Dave Hutchinson
7 (14.0%)

The Book of Phoenix by Nnedi Okorafor
12 (24.0%)

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers
42 (84.0%)

Way Down Dark by James Smythe
0 (0.0%)



Bold for have read, italic for intend to read, underline for never heard of it.

Which 2016 Clarke Award finalists did you read??
Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky
Arcadia by Iain Pears
Europe at Midnight by Dave Hutchinson
The Book of Phoenix by Nnedi Okorafor
The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers

Way Down Dark by James Smythe
james_davis_nicoll: (Default)
james_davis_nicoll ([personal profile] james_davis_nicoll) wrote2025-09-28 08:37 pm

I don't know what to make of this



The Cherryh titles I dropped into ngram fell into 3 patterns:

Ones whose titles don't play nicely with ngrams. I dropped those.
Ones where the mentions per year decline fairly steadily year to year.
Cyteen. What's up with Cyteen? Did Jo Walton mention it on tor dot com around 2009?
james_davis_nicoll: (Default)
james_davis_nicoll ([personal profile] james_davis_nicoll) wrote2025-09-27 09:10 am
Entry tags:

Books Received, September 20 — September 26



Six works new to me: four fantasy, one mystery, one non-fiction (from an unexpected source)... unless you count the fantasy-mystery as mystery, in which case it's three fantasy and two mysteries. At least two are series. I don't know why publishers are so averse to labelling series.

Books Received, September 20 — September 26

Poll #33662 Books Received, September 20 — September 26
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 43


Which of these look interesting?

View Answers

An Ordinary Sort of Evil by Kelley Armstrong
12 (27.9%)

Sea of Charms by Sarah Beth Durst (July 2026)
12 (27.9%)

Following My Nose by Alexei Panshin (December 2024)
11 (25.6%)

The Fake Divination Offense by Sara Raasch (May 2026)
7 (16.3%)

The Harvey Girl by Dana Stabenow (February 2026)
8 (18.6%)

Scarlet Morning by ND Stevenson (September 2025)
17 (39.5%)

Some other option (see comments)
1 (2.3%)

Cats!
32 (74.4%)

james_davis_nicoll: (Default)
james_davis_nicoll ([personal profile] james_davis_nicoll) wrote2025-09-26 09:17 am

Bound Feet by Kelsea Yu



A grieving mother and her best friend break into a ghost museum to conduct illicit but surely harmless Ghost Day celebrations. Revelations await.

Bound Feet by Kelsea Yu
james_davis_nicoll: (Default)
james_davis_nicoll ([personal profile] james_davis_nicoll) wrote2025-09-25 10:07 am
Entry tags:

On Writing Romance as Hard Science Fiction



More stories should dig into the chemistry, biology, and physics of falling in love.

On Writing Romance as Hard Science Fiction
asakiyume: (yaksa)
asakiyume ([personal profile] asakiyume) wrote2025-09-25 08:43 am

Saint Death's Daughter

What a breathtaking book Saint Death’s Daughter is. Truly magnificent in all respects: its exciting, imaginative story, its absorbing, immersive worldbuilding, its soaring writing, and its sharp, compassionate observations about human nature. I loved it completely.

It’s been a long time since I walked into a book and lost myself so entirely in it, so much so that I wanted to bring pieces of it back with me into this world. Can we have sothaín meditations, please? Can we have these twelve gods? … But just certain select pieces! Because the other thing about the world of Saint Death’s Daughter is that it’s cheerfully vicious and merciless—not always and everywhere by any means—but plenty enough. Take the fact that our protagonist, Miscellaneous (Lanie) Stones, comes from a family of assassins and torturers. And there are similar people in high places throughout the story. But the folks Lanie’s drawn to are nothing like that at all. We’re more than our family history, and we can make different choices—that’s the grounding hum that vibrates through the story. Lanie sets herself to make amends for the harm her family’s done: tries, fails, and tries again, all while growing into a powerful necromancer with a deep devotion to Doédenna, Saint Death.

There's so much! This is just scratching the surface )

So those are some of my reasons for loving Saint Death’s Daughter. It’s doing so much that it’s impossible to cover it all in a review. Lanie eventually learns to speak with more than one voice at once, with a surface voice and a deeper one (kind of like throat singing, where you sing more than one note at the same time, only Lanie’s deeper voice isn’t audible in the usual way of things). The novel is like this too: it’s speaking in a surface voice and in many other voices as well. It’s broadcasting on many frequencies; you can hear many, many things.
james_davis_nicoll: (Default)
james_davis_nicoll ([personal profile] james_davis_nicoll) wrote2025-09-25 08:53 am

Random Acts of Senseless Violence by Jack Womack



Amid economic downturn and political strife, young American teen discovers her hidden potential.

Random Acts of Senseless Violence by Jack Womack
sartorias: (Default)
sartorias ([personal profile] sartorias) wrote2025-09-24 10:28 am
Entry tags:

(no subject)

I'm up here at my sister's, not quite a hundred miles north of home, while the new floors are put in. It's all SoCal, and yet a completely different microclimate. I woke to the tut-tut-tut of some bird we don't ever hear at home, and other chirps and twitters equally unfamiliar. Over that, though, the very familiar caw of crows.

As I did the morning walk with the little dog, and listened to the local crows up in the eucalyptus and pines, I wondered if the crows that follow me at home were watching for me to come. Now that the sun is lowering a bit, we're back to increasing numbers, so I might have thirty or so swirling around me when I throw unsalted peanuts out. so exhilarating to watch them!

Here they don't know me, of course, so the calls can't be to let me know they are there. I'm sure the lives of humans are ignorable, except as annoyances that send them into the trees. I wondered about that sky civilization as I trod the path to the dog park. So much going on at the tops of the trees, that we barely notice!

It's such a relief not to be toiling with packing, though of course unpacking lies in wait to pounce when I get back. Then I'll only have three or four days before I take off for my October east trip, so most of my share of the unloading will await me on my return. The big job (and the fun one) is the library.

Speaking of, since it's Wednesday, let's see, what have I been reading? The Military Philosophers by Anthony Powell, which is part of a book discussion that I've been following since the start of the year. One book a month in Powell's A Dance to the Music of Time series. The discussion happens at the start of each month over Zoom, and what interests me is how folks from either side of the Atlantic read the work. Also, non-genre reading. This time I'll be on the train when the discussion rolls around, so I hope I have connectivity, but if not I'll listen to the recording. At least that way I can skip ahead if the fellow who leads it gets prolix over an obvious point as he has a tendency to do. The academic curse; students above a certain age level are too polite to say 'Zip it! We got the idea already." (High schoolers had no such restraint, and middle schoolers invariably signalled boredom by more physical means.)

Anyway I had the leisure, for the first time in a couple of months, to make chocolate chip cookies. So I can have those and tea and do some reading. Heigh ho, I will go do that now.